"The biggest factors for insect being super interesting is their abilities to transform almost any feed source into a very nutritious flesh," he explains to us. It's a fact he picked up from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, after reading a newspaper article that said eating insects would reduce hunger and pollution the world over. Naturally, he responded by building a Fly Factory that restaurants can use to grow delicious suppers for their clientele. He has a recipe for larvae pudding, too.

"I was supposed to pick a subject for my graduation project and I knew that I wanted to do something related to living matter and the transforming power that dwells in the nature," Aðalsteinsson tells Wired.co.uk.

After three months he had the prototype built, first spotted by Dezeen. A glassed-in box contains Black Soldier Flies, which are fed on organic waste —the everyday vegetable and meat cuttings you'd dump in your food bin (though Aðalsteinsson is researching whether seaweed can also do the trick). The greedy flies become rich in fat and protein, says Aðalsteinsson, and then they can be "harvested for human consumption". Their waste produces a "nutrient-rich soil" that is drained into compost canisters to be used in spice production. Spicy. "This idea of a wasteless production will hopefully inspire others to rethink linear production, which produces great amounts of waste and unused byproducts," Aðalsteinsson explains.

"The final component is the refrigerator which is used for larvae paté storage and also employed as a thermal source to maintain the humidity and temperature of the flies' environment."

It's a common prophecy that we will all become insect-eaters. Much of the world is already onboard with the proposal, and has been for years, well aware of the nutritional benefits of the tiny beasts. This was relayed to the public through the UN report that inspired Aðalsteinsson's at-home insect factory. It revealed, for instance, that while we can only consume around 40 percent of a cow or a chicken, 80 percent of a cricket is edible. And while it takes chickens 2.5kg of feed to produce just 1kg of meet, and 10 kg of feed for cows to do the same, 1kg of live animal weight of crickets requires just 1.7kg of feed. They are simply much better.

Of course, cultural divisions are the main obstacle here. As the UN report puts it: "In most Western countries people view entomophagy with disgust and associate eating insects with primitive behavior. This attitude has resulted in the neglect of insects in agricultural research. Despite historical references to the use of insects for food, the topic of entomophagy has only very recently started to capture public attention worldwide."

Aðalsteinsson has discovered this first hand, and tells Wired.co.uk reactions have been "mixed". A lot of people talk the talk, but few will walk up to an insect and ravenously devour it.

"Most people are very interested in the project and its prospects. But when I ask if they would like to try, the answers are different—some are willing and others are not. On the other hand I have received letters and inquiries from very eager and interested people in fields of food entrepreneurship and biology."

Aðalsteinsson has his work cut out for him, not least because he's chosen one of the least popular edible insects to dine on—of the total insects consumed globally, around 31 percent are beetles, 18 percent are juicy, juicy caterpillars and 14 percent are bees, wasps and ants. There's a whole bunch in between, but flies come in near last place at 2 percent. It was not so much their flavor, that Aðalsteinsson picked them for, though. So much as the lack of diversity in his homeland, Iceland.

"Almost all of them are dormant in February at the time I wanted to research and collect them," he explains. "After much research I finally found a guy that was researching the possibilities of transforming food waste into fish feed. His name is Jón Árnason and he was extremely excited and helpful from the start." Through this collaboration, he ended up researching the Black Soldier Fly, and soon found out the insects will eat almost anything organic and are fairly easy to harvest.

At the end of the day though, the design is there to provoke debate and help get the ball rolling on turning recommendations into reality. And Aðalsteinsson is trying to work within the constraints and bias with which he is faced.

"I think food is highly dependent on trust and when you make new types of food you have to make people believe in it. My inspiration for the fly factory came from the industrial kitchen. They just look so robust and you really believe they will keep on working for a long time. Another big element is to embrace the existing food culture. Western society is dependent upon processed food and I am not about to change that with one project. So rather than fighting an existing culture I made processed insect food."

"I envision my fly factory to be used in industrial settings inside restaurants or within the food industries. I think that insects do not need to be friendly and look good, they need to taste good and be affordable then people will stomach them."

For now, Aðalsteinsson, under the guidance of head of product design Garðar Eyjólfsson professor Thomas Pausz at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts, will experiment with the final prototype and the different possible incarnations. But Aðalsteinsson truly believes it's a scalable system that could be taken to manufacturers. We just need the incentive, and with food shortages and spiraling costs, it seems there's plenty.

There's only really one question before we jump in, then.

What does it taste like?

"It has a bland flavor," says Aðalsteinsson, "and the texture is easily controlled. It probably won't have the same texture as chicken, but if you dry and grind them you get powder similar to wheat which you can bake or mix with other ingredients."